Does an Entrepreneurial Career Pay for Women in China?

Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project survey in 2013, our male–female pay‐gap decomposition illustrates that the gender earnings gap is larger among the self‐employed than the wage‐employed after controlling for the effect of various pay‐determining characteristics. Our self‐employed versus wage‐employed decomposition also controls for selection into self‐employment as well as those pay‐determining characteristics. We find that wage‐employed women would earn less than their current earnings if they shifted to self‐employment, while wage‐employed men would earn more than their current earnings if they became self‐employed. In essence, self‐employed women suffer from double jeopardy. They not only earn less than men in self‐employment due to lower returns for the same pay‐determining characteristics, but women in self‐employment also earn less than women in wage employment when they have the same pay‐determining characteristics.     

Sex and Interoccupational Wage Differences in Israel

An examination of the influence of the sex identification of an occupation on earnings reveals that: (1) male occupations earn more than female occupations; (2) nonsegregated occupations tend to be more similar in earnings to female than to male occupations; (3) the majority of female occupations earn below the mean for occupations at each level of education; the inverse is true for male occupations; (4) men in female occupations earn less than they do in male occupations; and (5) women in male occupations do not consistently earn more than women in female occupations at comparable levels of education. Our data indicate that they tend to gravitate toward the lower earning male occupations. These findings support the hypothesis that in Israel, as elsewhere, occupational segregation is an important factor underlying earning differentials between women and men. Wage differentials are the result not only of differences in human capital resources, but also of unequal opportunities within the occupational structure. The division of labor by sex does not cause inequality—rather it permits the perpetuation of a system of social relations in which the work women do is allocated inferior status and economic rewards. The social forces which produce and sustain this reality are worthy of further investigation.     

The Gender Pay Gap for Private‐Sector Employees in Canada and Britain

The gender earnings differentials for private‐sector employees in Britain and Canada are similar, substantial and significant. Using linked employer–employee data, we show that women are more likely to be employed in low‐wage workplaces than men in both counties. After accounting for the workplace, women continue to earn less than comparable men. Although men and women face a more equal pay structure within their workplace than they do across workplaces, a substantial portion of the gender pay gap in both countries remains unexplained by the individual characteristics or workplace effects considered in this study.     

A Man's Blessing or a Woman's Curse? The Family Earnings Gap of Doctors

We examine the size and determinants of the family earnings gap for Australian general practitioners (GPs). Female GPs with children earn more than $30,000 less than comparable female GPs without children, while male GPs with children earn more than $45,000 more than comparable male GPs without children. The main determinants of the family gap are differences in observable characteristics such as working hours, labor‐force attachment, and demographics, and additionally, for men, entrepreneurship and practice size. A fixed‐effects extension of the analysis confirms both the carer effect of children on female GPs and the breadwinner effect of children on male GPs.     

Discrimination at the Top: American-Born Asian and White Men

Asians are perceived as doing very well, and, indeed, the average earnings of several Asian groups exceed those of whites. However, although entering well-paying positions, Asians may be prevented from further advancement by an invisible "glass ceiling." Using microdata from the 1980 census to examine the economic status of American-born men in five Asian groups, we find that the average Asian man earns as much as non-Hispanic white men, but, adjusting for occupation and industry, highly educated Asian men in all five groups earn less than their white counterparts.     

Earnings and Percentage Female: A Longitudinal Study

Comparable worth advocates assume that the relation between earnings and percentage female in an occupation is due to crowding or other forms of discrimination. An alternative explanation is that the relation stems from women freely choosing different occupations. Using longitudinal data to control for time-invariant omitted variables, as well as cross-sectional data (for comparison with previous research), we find that although men's estimated penalty is not reduced, the percentage female penalty falls substantially for women and is not statistically significant. These results imply that estimates of the percentage female effect based on cross-sectional data may be inflated for women–except for those with intermittent labor force participation. This group does experience a sizeable penalty for working in female-dominated occupations. Hence, a comparable worth policy would most likely benefit women with discontinuous employment.     

Comparing the Earnings of Cohabiting Lesbians,Cohabiting Heterosexual Women,and Married Women: Evidence from the 2000 Census

Using data from the 2000 Census, I tested the hypothesis that cohabiting lesbians have statistically different earnings from cohabiting and married heterosexual women. Cohabiting lesbians earn more than their heterosexual counterparts, even when differences in child‐rearing status are considered. Furthermore, the results do not support differences in household specialization as an explanation for the lesbian earnings premium.     

Generating Equality? Equal Pay,Decentralization and the Electricity Supply Industry

Despite the existence of effective equal pay legislation in the UK since 1975 aimed at eradicating pay discrimination, women are still in receipt of only 79.5 per cent of the hourly earnings received by men (EOR 1994b). Whitehouse (1992) claims that a centralized collective bargaining model is more likely to lead to equality for women in the labour market than a liberalized individualistic model. The model was tested at an aggregated level for 13 OECD countries. This article provides a case study which charts a trade union claim for equal pay over a period often years (1984–94), which may be seen as an examination of the Whitehouse proposition at a disaggregated level. The paper highlights the barriers to equality bargaining and analyses the case study to identify the criteria necessary for achieving equality.     

Sexual Orientation,Income, and Stress at Work

I present a model explaining recent findings that partnered gay men earn less than partnered straight men while partnered lesbian women earn more than partnered straight women. In an environment with compensating differentials and a gender gap in potential income, an income effect leads partnered gay men to choose jobs with lower income and higher amenities than partnered straight men. The same mechanism generates similarly reasoned predictions about income and amenities for women and single people. Canadian data on stressfulness of one's working environment support these predictions.     

Gender Earnings Differentials Among College Administrators

This analysis examines gender pay gap among the top five salaried individuals at private higher education institutions. We find a 13.0 percent average pay disadvantage for women versus men. This pay gap can be decomposed into a 10.4 percent differential owing to differences in the types of institutions and occupations that women hold relative to men and a 2.6 percent unexplained earnings differential.     

The Immigrant Earnings Disadvantage across the Earnings and Skills Distributions: The Case of Immigrants from the EU's New Member States

We analyse the earnings of immigrants from the EU's new member states (NMS) using a large‐scale dataset with information on employees in Ireland. We find that the average earnings difference between these immigrants and natives is between 10 and 18 per cent, depending on the controls used. However, the difference is found to be lower for people at the lower end of the earnings distribution. It is also generally lower for people at the lower end of the education distribution. We find mixed evidence on whether unions have an impact on the wages of immigrants from the NMS, although such immigrants appear to suffer a wage penalty as a result of being in firms that provided training to a significant proportion of their workforce.     

Mathematical College Majors and the Gender Gap in Wages

College graduates with mathematical college majors earn more than other college graduates. Women are less likely than men to pursue mathematical college majors. This does not, however, explain the entire gender wage differential. In a representative cross section of recent college graduates, women earn 9 percent less than men with equally mathematical college majors. The gender wage disadvantage faced by women with technical college majors is no larger than that faced by women with nontechnical college majors.     

The Gender Gap in Funeral Directors: Burying Women with Ready‐to‐Embalm Laws?

Over the last few decades, the gender composition of funeral directors in the United States has changed dramatically as women have entered this traditionally male‐dominated occupation. To practise as funeral directors, women (and men) must be licensed in all but one state. The most extensive training requirements exist in the 27 states with ‘ready‐to‐embalm’ laws, which require funeral directors to be embalmers. Using a sample of 45,989 licensing records from 40 states, we find that 18.1 per cent of funeral directors were women in 2006. However, the proportion is significantly lower in states with ready‐to‐embalm laws. Our regressions imply that these laws reduce the proportion of female funeral directors by 24 per cent. More generally, we find that the number of funeral directors per capita is 17 per cent lower, on average, in states with ready‐to‐embalm laws.     

The Relative Effects of Unionism on the Earnings Distributions of Women and Men

This study examines the differential effects of union density on the degree of earnings inequality among women and among men. Our results suggest an equalizing impact of union density for all men and for both men and women who work year-round and full time. Union density does not appear to equalize and may even contribute to a disequalization of the earnings distribution for all women.     

Who Works for Whom and the UK Gender Pay Gap

This study reports novel facts about the UK gender pay gap. We use a representative, longitudinal and linked employer–employee dataset for 2002–2016. Men's average log hourly wage was 22 points higher than women's in this period. We find that 16 per cent of this raw pay gap is accounted for by estimated firm-specific wage effects. This is almost three times the amount explained by gender occupation differences. When we decompose a pre-adjusted measure of the pay gap, we find less than 1 percentage point or a 6 per cent share is accounted for by the gender allocation across high- and low-wage firms. In other words, only a small share of what is traditionally referred to as the ‘unexplained’ part of the pay gap is explained by the differences between men and women in whom they work for.     

Meta‐Analysis of the Effects of Sexual Orientation on Earnings

Most studies show that gay men earn less and lesbians earn more than their heterosexual counterparts, but the size of estimated sexual orientation differences varies greatly across studies. Using studies published between 1995 and 2012, a meta‐regression shows that the gay sample size, sexual orientation measure, and controls for work intensity explain variation in estimates for men. For women, there are few conclusive influences although controlling for work intensity seems to be most important.     

Race and Gender Wage Gaps in the Market for Recent College Graduates

Using a large sample of recent college graduates, the study tests the hypothesis that observed race and gender wage differentials reflect between-group differences in the type and quality of education attained rather than labor market discrimination. After controlling for narrowly defined college major, college grade point average, and the exact educational institution attended, white male and Hispanic male graduates earn 10 to 15 percent more per hour than comparable female, black male, or Asian male graduates.     

Upstreamness,Wages and Gender: Equal Benefits for All?

This article provides first evidence on the impact of a direct measure of firm‐level upstreamness (i.e. the steps before the production of a firm meets final demand) on workers’ wages. It also investigates whether results vary along the earnings distribution and by gender. Findings, based on unique matched employer–employee data relative to the Belgian manufacturing industry for the period 2002–2010, show that workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more upstream firms. Yet, the gains from upstreamness are found to be very unequally shared among workers. Unconditional quantile estimates suggest that male top earners are the main beneficiaries, whereas women, irrespective of their earnings, appear to be unfairly rewarded. Quantile decompositions further show that these differences in wage premia account for a substantial part of the gender wage gap, especially at the top of the earnings distribution.     

Fluidity in Sexual Identity,Unmeasured Heterogeneity,and the Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation

Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study (1) examines the sensitivity of the estimated earnings penalty of sexual minority status to family‐level unobserved heterogeneity, and (2) explores whether the earnings effects of sexual orientation differ by the degree of fluidity in individuals' self‐reported sexual identity over time. Evidence from sibling pairs suggests that unobserved family heterogeneity is not an important source of bias in the estimated relationship between sexual orientation and young adult earnings. I find that gay males and bisexuals earn lower wages than their heterosexual counterparts, while lesbians earn wages that are not significantly different from heterosexual females. Finally, I examine the role of fluidity in sexual orientation over time and find that males who are longer‐term gay identifiers earn wages that are 26.4 percent lower than their consistently heterosexual‐identifying counterparts.     

Back‐to‐Front Down Under? Part‐Time/Full‐Time Wage Differentials in Australia

We investigate part‐time full‐time hourly wage gaps using panel data from the first four waves of the new Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find that, once unobserved individual heterogeneity has been taken into account, part‐time men and women typically earn an hourly pay premium. This premium varies with casual employment status, but is always positive. We advance some hypotheses as to why there is a part‐time pay advantage in Australia.